Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (42)

Ed, Lewis, Bobby and Drew are Georgia suburbanites in search of adventure,
so they decide to canoe down the wild Cahulawasee River before it is dammed
up forever. The boys, as most everyone knows from the terrific movie,
soon stumble upon more adventure than they had anticipated and find themselves
at war with several denizens of the backwoods country. These four men are
forced to confront the central question at the core of the male being:
how would I react if I was confronted by physical danger and heroism was
required.

Ed, the narrator and hero of the book, finds upon returning home that
his entire life has improved. By performing well during the crisis,
he has built up a personal reservoir of confidence that he continues to
draw upon.

Contrast Ed with the men of the Clinton/Gingrich generation. Their
general avoidance of service in Viet Nam has resulted in a twisting of
their souls. Given the opportunity to answer the central question
about themselves, they ducked. In a phrase coined by C.S. Lewis,
they are "men without chests". Hollow at their cores, they have no
proven personal strength to draw upon and collapse inwards upon themselves.

This is a great book and perhaps one of the last truly male works of
literature that will be admitted to the canon.